According to the police, Devkar, who also deals in arranging work visas, was allegedly kidnapped from a hotel in Versova by three men. The police said the accused called him outside the hotel and then shoved him into a Lancer and sped away. The police suspect that Devkar had taken money from the accused to send them abroad but didn’t keep his promise, which led to the kidnapping.

“After kidnapping him, the three accused — Salim Haji, Nisar Khan and Ibrahim Fauzi — took Devkar to Nasir’s flat in Vakola and beat him up,” said ACP Dilip Suryavanshi.

According to Suryavanshi, the accused then called up Devkar’s wife Nazia from his cellphone and demanded Rs 20 lakh ransom. A case of kidnapping was registered with the Versova police station and investigations began, Suryavanshi said.

“One of them was constantly following the movements of Nazia to keep track of her actions and they were aware that she had approached the police. So when we laid a trap at a shopping mall where they wanted Nazia to hand over the cash, they got suspicious and we couldn’t nab them. They kept us waiting for three hours,” said Suryavanshi.

The police got a breakthrough when Nazia informed the kidnappers that she had withdrawn the complaint and the accused lowered guard, the police said.

“On Tuesday morning, we arrested three of them at a restaurant in Juhu where they had asked Nazia to come with the money. The police later rescued Devkar. A fourth person has been detained but we are still investigating about his involvement in the offence. The other three are all residents of Vakola pipeline and do petty jobs,” said Suryavanshi.

“We recovered 20 passports from Devkar’s house besides Rs 5 lakh in cash, which he had taken from people promising to arrange work visas for them. The accused had asked Nazia to get 20 passports along with the cash.”